An expanded functionality is being considered for the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (i.e., 3GPP) that decides the technical specification of public wireless communication networks (see, for example, Non-Patent Literature 1).
Using such an expanded functionality, known as “Machine to Machine Equipment,” it will become possible to flexibly use information showing what services can be utilized. Such information may be referred to as contract authentication information (for example, rewritable connection rights). As an example, it may possible to download contract authentication information from a network and additionally or alternatively, to temporarily invalidate and then revalidate contract authentication information within a network.
At present, information corresponding to contract authentication information needs to be stored in a physical device called a SIM (Subscriber Identity Module) card. However, if contract authentication information could be handled as software, the method of storage could be made more flexible.